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Condo lifestyle the choice of more families

Affordability, conveniences and reduced commutes are among the reasons more GTA parents are raising their kids in city highrises

Melissa Karpetz, right, and wife with 21-month-old son Malcolm and Lucy, their Boston terrier. The family lives in a two-bedroom condo in downtown Toronto. (Rick Madonik / Toronto Star)

Natalie Matias says she enjoys the quality and balance of condo living with son Holden, 9, in King West Village rather a house-oriented lifestyle requiring long commutes. (Rene Johnston / Toronto Star)

Pick an evening in downtown Toronto and you’ll find fans heading to sports events and concerts, commuters hurrying to get home and tourists headed to restaurants, shopping and shows.

Among the crowds will also be a steady stream of babies and toddlers in strollers, pushed by the waves of condo parents raising their children in the heart of it all.

This week’s release of new, 2016 Census data revealed 20.9 per cent of Toronto residents live in condos, up from 18.7 per cent in 2011.

Of the 994,000 families with kids living in Toronto, 13 per cent called condos their home, compared to 8.4 per cent across Canada. Builders are responding, with condominiums now making up one third of new homes built in Canada between 2011 and 2016.

Since the last Census in 2011, there were 10,500 more Toronto families with children living in condos, up to 129,000 from 118,000. The growth of these condo families (8.9 per cent) was more than double the growth of families (3.9 per cent) in the region.

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“Condominiums represent an alternative to perhaps the traditional ideology of home ownership, which may be attached or steeped in this white picket fence, single-detached home ideal,” says Jeff Randall, an analyst with Statistics Canada.

“Not only is Toronto above the national average for these types of families living in condos, the growth is also outpacing the growth of these families in the region,” says Randall.

Natalie Matias says she enjoys the quality and balance of condo living with son Holden, 9, in King West Village rather a house-oriented lifestyle requiring long commutes. (Rene Johnston)

The rules of a typical childhood in the city have been rewritten.

Condo families are congregating by the thousands in courtyards, pools and party rooms, and the kind of community spirit and closeness normally associated with small-town neighbours is developing within the towers across the GTA.

Melissa Karpetz, her wife Lindsay, and their 21-month-old son Malcolm, are part of Toronto’s growing trend of highrise families.

Along with their Boston terrier Lucy, the trio’s home is a 1,400-square-foot, two-bedroom-plus den unit on the edge of the city’s south-downtown St. Lawrence neighbourhood. Karpetz says the common areas they share with their neighbours feel like an extension of their home.

“Some of our best friends we’ve met through the building and parent meet-up groups,” says Karpetz, 34. “It really does create these communities.”

They’ve recently begun enjoying weekly babysitting swaps with another couple in the building, who has a daughter a few months younger than Malcolm. On a date night this fall, the couple was able to enjoy a relaxed dinner at a VIP movie, then returned the favour a few days later when their friends went for a run and did some kid-free grocery shopping.

Karpetz says adding to the community spirit are the events parents host for the children, including Easter egg hunts, Halloween parties and baby meet-ups. A local librarian comes to the party room to read to the condo kids and lets them to sign out books.

The sixth-floor Sky Park at Melissa and Lindsay Karpetz's downtown condo has a sandbox, toy house and shed containing play gear for the children in the building, including the couple's 21-month-old son Malcolm. (Rick Madonik)

Weather permitting, the building’s sixth floor Sky Park is kid-central, with a sandbox, toy house and a shed for communal toys, balls, nets and hockey sticks.

“You go there on a Sunday evening and people have the barbecue running, there’s kids running around everywhere,” she says. “You’re meeting more parents, talking to more people. You’ve got extra eyes on your kids and you’re watching other kids. It’s really lovely.”

Not so lovely, she says, is the shortage of storage space and the inability to let your child run free in a backyard simply by opening the door. “There’s pros and cons to everything.”

Karpetz says she and Lindsay, 33, considered buying a house in the suburbs, but chose convenience over commuting. “We really appreciated the lifestyle that living downtown close to our jobs afforded us,” she says.

They both work a 15-minute walk or short TTC ride away. Their son’s daycare is down the street from their condo.

And Karpetz says she’s observed first-hand during her eight years in the building the demographic shift: “As time goes on, you are just constantly seeing more babies, more kids, more strollers, because it’s affordable,” she says, before clarifying: “It’s Toronto-affordable!”

Natalie Matias's son Holden, 9, points to the view of the CN Tower from their King West village condo. (Rene Johnston)

For Natalie Matias, the decision to raise her 9-year-old son Holden in a 900 square-foot condo in King West Village was initially financially motivated. She watched her parents struggle to afford their house in the suburbs, with no disposable income to really enjoy their life.

“Just because of the pressure of needing to have this house, to think that you can provide a better life that way,” she says.

Reflecting on her different lifestyle decision years later, the 37-year-old makeup artist and meditation teacher says condo living has brought a kind of health and balance to her life with Holden.

“I think it’s a beautiful way to show to my son that bigger is not always better,” she says. “For me, living downtown in a condo, it’s more of a quality life for me, a sense of balance where I am not in a car for two or three hours of my whole day,” she says.

Matias walks to work, to her son’s school, to her local coffee shop and to the grocery store, occasionally borrowing a friend’s car from a nearby condo for longer trips.

“I think about how many times I run into someone in my day just by walking; that quick interaction, it just lifts your day.”

Toddler Malcom Karpetz and Boston terrier Lucy relax at his family's condo home. Malcolm's parentssay the building's common areas and parent meet-up groups have helped create a true community in their downtown highrise. (Rick Madonik)

The single mom says the condo parents support and look out for one another around the building and in local parks.

Once, when Matias was scrambling for last-minute child-care after forgetting it was a PD Day, her son suggested they knock on another condo mom’s door. The neighbour obliged and Holden spent the day with his friends.

“It’s become a really tight-knit community because we share so many common spaces,” says Matias. “It creates this opportunity to connect more often than, for instance, if you had your own backyard.”

She says Holden is “very proud” of the fact he lives in a condo. “We have an outdoor pool, we have an indoor pool … a squash court. All these things are just down the elevator.”

Many of the city’s condo buildings have personalized Facebook pages that help curate the community spirit and encourage neighbours to connect. Matias says residents use their building’s social media for everything from finding a babysitter to sharing a communal vacuum cleaner.

While she’s been a proud condo mom for nearly a decade, Matias does take issue with the volume of buildings popping up across the city.

She says residents of her building banded together to fight a proposed nearby condo development with large retail space. Worried for their children’s safety with delivery truck traffic in the congested space, residents and the condo board attended community meetings and successfully fought the proposal.

MORE ADVENTURE FOR THE CONDO KIDS

Star freelance writer Jackie Burns with the second installment in her Condo Kids book series, Project Haunted Condo. (Jackie Burns)

Reports of disappearing food, vanishing wigs and mysterious white flashes have The Condo Kids caught up in their next highrise adventure.

Project Haunted Condo is the second in my book series, The Condo kids. Positive response to the first instalment, Adventures with Bob the Barbary Sheep, affirmed my belief that kids living in highrises need stories that reflect their environment. Meeting so many children on my Condo Kids book tour this past summer also reinforced the understanding that whether kids grow up in a house, on a farm or in an urban highrise, they all relate to the bonds shared with neighbours.

The Condo Kids is aimed at readers aged 6-9. My inspiration for the series came from my two young sons and their pals, whose Toronto condo has become a launch pad for adventure.

The 78-page book is available on Amazon (12.99 U.S) and through thecondokids.com. My sons and the real condo kids in our building are proud Earth Rangers, so 10 per cent of all proceeds from book sales go to this worthwhile kids’ conservation organization. Part 3 in the series — The Case of the Disappearing Pool Monster — will be out next year.

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